By Jamie Redman
Hard Forks & Blockchains
Ethereum has hard-forked and pulled it off pretty successfully some would say. Roughly 85% of the community moved to the revamped software and those who lost DAO money were refunded. This has caused a stir in the Bitcoin community as many have called the roll back a “bail out.” Many have bolstered the opinion that Bitcoin is far superior because it has never done a roll back and is immutable. However, there have been others within the Bitcoin community who have congratulated the team for a successful hard fork.
Of course, there has been a lot of blockchain news and many banks have been working on blockchain related projects. For instance, Barclays has been working on blockchain research and development in South Africa and the firm Mizuho Financial Group tested a cross-currency settlement prototype with Ripple. Moreover, the third largest multinational professional services firm EY released a report about blockchain technology reaching critical mass.
The Bitcoin Landscape Still Looks Bright
In Bitcoin-land, the popular service Breadwallet finally landed on Android after two years of waiting. Charlie Shrem was released from prison and is enjoying a normal life with his girlfriend in Pennsylvania. The founder of the now defunct BitInstant is doing well and has thanked many in the Bitcoin community for their support during his jail time.
In other news, a project called BitID has finished a testing pilot which verifies identity using the Bitcoin blockchain. The companies Airbitz and BitPOS have partnered to experiment with BitID hoping it can add integrity to the digital identification process. Additionally, IFTTT says over 8,000 of its users are recording Bitcoin price with Google spreadsheets.
Price Corrects as Bearish Traders Sell Off Bits
As far as the price, it has been below support lines, and the selloff has given Bitcoin a sharp correction. Bitcoin’s value still seems overbought unless the weekend pickups up with heavier trading changing the current downturn.
The trendline from the ascending channel pattern looks as though Bears may play the short game for a bit. Ether value at the time may be attributing to some of the BTC selling as traders’ confidence returns following the hard fork.
Not the most exciting summer so far as people thought the halving might skyrocket the price but it definitely got a lot of focus towards the cryptocurrency as the event approached. Bitcoin remains strong and still hasn’t died this year as many have suggested in the past.